Summary
WhenStar Trek’screator, Gene Roddenberry, was working onStar Trek: The Original Series, he was very aware of the fine line that science fiction walks between fantasy and reality. He was making a show about exploring the galaxy in a giant spacecraft years before the first men walked on the moon. Obviously, Roddenberry knew he’d be creating a fantasy world. But he wantedStar Trek’sfantasy to be as realistic and based on actual science as possible.
AsScientific Americanreported, Roddenberry achieved that goal by hiring actual scientists to help him make his fantasy believable. A physicist named Harvey P. Lynn, Jr. was one of the first scientific consultants forStar Trek. He reviewed the scripts for theTOSpilot, “The Cage,” and worked with the writers to make them more accurate. Once the series was finally picked up, the producers hired scientists Joan Pearce and Peter Sloman from De Forest Research to review all the scripts.
The Language of Scientific Accuracy
Whenever Pearce or Sloman found something inconsistent with scientific fact, they worked with the writers to come up with changes that made sense for the story and maintained accuracy. This often meant adding very technical language to the scripts, and soon,Star Trekbecame infamous for its technical jargon.
The sheer amount of jargon inTOSsometimes made it difficult for the average viewer to follow. However, because it wasscience fiction, the jargon actually made the show more realistic to viewers. They accepted that they wouldn’t understand all the talk of “lightyears” and “parsecs” and “nacelles” because they weren’t scientists, so the jargon had the effect of convincing viewers that the characters knew what they were talking about.
The dedication to scientific accuracy did have its downsides, though. Fans who were scientists, academics, and researchers themselves began writing letters to theStar Trekstaff asking for clarification on certain facts included in an episode and pointing outinconsistencies and errors. Despite their annoyance, the writers and consultants began to accept these letters as proof that their show was believable enough that people wanted to nitpick about the details, rather than condemn the entire premise as a wild fantasy.
The Birth of Treknobabble
When Roddenberry and his creative team started development onStar Trek: The Next Generation, they were still committed to maintaining the same level of scientific accuracy asTOS.Just as they’d done before, the producers hired consultants to help the writers with the technical stuff. However, the writers had a lot of trouble walking the line between good science and good-sounding science that worked for their stories.
Naren Shankar, one of the science consultants for the latter seasons ofTNGtold the authors ofThe Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, that his job:
…was not about science, it was about maintaining the fake science of theStar Trekworld.
He went on to say that the previousscience advisorwas adamant about scientific accuracy, and Shankar got the impression that the writers were annoyed by that. So, Shankar did the job they were asking him to do: fill in the script with some jargon that sounded good and wasn’t so inaccurate that it abandoned all scientific merit.
In fact, filling in the blanks in the script was literally how the scientific jargon got into each episode. When the writers worked on a new episode, they’d write “[TECH]” anywhere they needed some semi-believable technical language. From there, the science advisors would fill in the blanks. The actors often got scripts before the jargon had been added, and would rehearse the scenes saying “tech” whenever it appeared in their lines. On a semiregular basis,Trek actorshad to memorize complicated lines of jargon the day the scenes were set to shoot. Though the show’s science advisors did their best to stick to jargon and concepts that were at least plausible, they eventually created an entire language ofStar Trek-specific jargont that persisted throughout the entire franchise.
Though the term “technobabble” didn’t enter the collective consciousness because ofStar Trek, the franchise became famous (or perhaps infamous) for its use of technobabble — scientific or technical sounding dialogue that doesn’t really mean anything in the real world. According to theOxford English Dictionary, the term was coined by theWall Street Journalin 1981, long before the premiere ofTNG. But the term became so associated withStar Trekthat fans of the show, and later the general public, started using the word “Treknobabble” to refer toStar Trek-specific technobabble.
The Internet Phenomenon of Treknobabble
As the Internet grew in popularity, the samenerds and geeks who’d lovedStar Treksince they were kids started bringing their love ofStar Trekto the Internet. InStar Trek-specific bulletin board systems and later forums, Trekkies discussed, analyzed, complained about, and poked fun at Treknobabble.
Fast-forward three decades, and now the Internet is full ofTreknobabble Generators,Treknobabble memes, and even Treknobabble rap. LikeStar Trek, Treknobabble is now part of the mainstream.
